To Offshore or Not to Offshore? Your Questions: Answered

Many companies wonder whether offshoring technological development would be a smart choice for them. Though we’re partial to outsourcing in all its forms here at ISG, we understand that your business has unique needs that can’t be addressed with a one-size-fits-all answer.

What you need is accurate, complete and honest information that helps you feel confident making an offshoring decision that meets your exact needs, right now and in the future.

If you’ve had questions about offshoring, you’ll appreciate these clear answers.

A Brief Intro to Offshoring for Tech Development

In our post-industrial society, savvy organizations need to treat their digital product development the same way they treat their physical product development; they need to make everything in the most efficient and productive manner possible.

But why do we need to create digital products in the first place? The answer to that lies right in front of you. Literally.

Yup, we’re talking about the phone screen you’re reading this article on. If you’re scoffing at us because you’re reading this article on a computer screen, just glance to the right of your computer a few inches so you can see your smartphone. After all, it’s right there next to you on the desk.

Today’s Consumers Are Linked to Their Phones

The fact that your smartphone is within your reach right now proves that the statistics are right, and that technological development is the wave of the future.

According to Deloitte, Millennials spend too much time on their phones. They stare at that tiny screen 82 times every single day. But it’s not just the young’uns who use their phones a lot: the rest of us look at our phones a whopping 47 times a day. In fact, there’s a 50% chance that you check your phone even when you wake up from a dead sleep in the middle of the night. (It’s okay. We do too.)

Since consumers spend their time interacting with their phones, clearly the next great frontier for business growth is by reaching prospects through their mobile devices. With the advent of wearables and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, there’s a lot of growth to be had for innovative, fast-moving businesses that choose to develop new technology in order to reach, inspire and engage potential customers.

But how can you develop new and exciting technology that increases visibility for your business if you’re not a tech company? Can your budget expand enough to include an in-house development team that will help you create an app or IoT device? If you can afford to hire an in-house team, what will you do with them at the end of the project? No one wants to fire an entire department.

With globalization, you won’t have to.

Enter Offshore Development

If you’ve been on the fence about offshoring because you dislike the idea of working with a team that’s half a world away in a country you’ve never visited, you may be surprised to learn how efficient, affordable, and effortless it can be to work with an overseas team.

In fact, working with an offshore company instead of a local or in-house team makes sense for a few reasons:

Computer programming languages are like foreign languages

Although a lot of the commands in programming languages are technically written in English, they don’t make sense to people who simply speak English well. They only make sense to programmers.

To give you an idea, here’s an example of a modern computer programming language called Python:

Most people can’t make sense out of that code snippet unless they already know Python. In fact, native English speakers may be distracted by the giggle-worthy term “pickle dumps” in there. An overseas tech in our global business landscape is likely to speak English well, but since they’re a trained programmer, they’ll view that “pickle dumps” term as a command, not as a joke.

Like everything else in life, you get what you pay for. If you have a limited budget for development and you’re looking for high-quality work, you’ll need each of your dollars to go further.

Offshore professionals typically hail from countries with a lower cost of living, such as the Philippines, which means that the costly fees they command in their country will convert to alow cost in dollars when you exchange the currency.

Due to low costs, many companies choose to engage overseas development firms to complete dull tasks, such as the tedious drudgery of code cleanup and testing. These labor-intensive duties can add up quickly here in the U.S., but rushing through these critical stages can result in disastrously buggy tech with severe security loopholes.

Instead of risking their reputation in the marketplace, savvy business leaders delegate key, time-consuming tasks to less expensive offshore operations and then allocate appropriate funds to typically onshore or in-house jobs such as design and finalization.

Overseas operations manage themselves

When we start talking about the management of overseas companies, there’s usually a pause. That’s because there’s an elephant in the room. Let’s acknowledge it:

Often, when Americans think of offshoring, they think of sweatshops with evil supervisors who would put Ebenezer Scrooge to shame. This is not the reality.

The full, honest truth about offshore businesses is that, while some are probably managed with an iron fist, most organizations are run exactly like your company with regular 8-hour workdays, great compensation, benefits, sick days and even cubicles.

Top-tier companies like ISG Global foster a healthy work environment that helps them stick to your timelines, deliver consistently exceptional work and maintain their stellar employees year after year.

Sound familiar? That’s because well-run businesses make good business sense the world over.

Developing Apps Is Hard, but Finding a Developer Is Easy

The conundrum in today’s business world is that companies of all sizes require tech developers so they can capture the attention of potential customers. Organizations without reserve cash to hire and manage a large development team are likely to fall behind their competition.

Innovative companies like yours will find a workaround.

Contact ISG to learn more about how you can save costs on the high-quality tech development your business needs to succeed.